I have a 06 Impala SS. Fun to drive, but gets me in trouble about once a year with the cops. Probably going to be more trouble when I buy the Camaro Z-28 3 years from now,but to my question:
Once in a while, maybe once a month, I am at a red light, completely stopped, when I start to go, there is a one second delay in moving, hear a slight thud, like a piece of the gear may be broken off, and the car cathes the next one and goes.
My guess is it’s something with the torque converter, but Im guessing from one article you published a while ago.
I didn’t get a direct reply from you, so now put this out to your shade tree mechanics, who still now a lot more about this than me.
Different topic - a few months ago you published a response in the Buffalo Evening News, in Buffalo, NY, to a question about speedometers. You responded that cars don’t actually go as fast as the spedo goes up to, meaning if it goes to 140, the car can’t go that fast. What I took issue with was that you stated no cars can goes as fast as the top speed indicated in the spedo.
Well, my Impala SS has a speedo that goes up to 140, but Motor Trend says top speed of this car is 154.
So your statement was not true in all cases. Now I have not had the car up to 154, although I would like to if I new I would not get a ticket, in a short burst I was just over 120, car still accelerating strongly, when I had to solw down for my exit.
So while I do not have a funny article that gets published, I do need your help with my question about the transmission or torque converter. Does something need to be looked at, possibly replaced?
Now don’t laugh at me, but could this in any way have to do with the time I was on the thruway driving back from New Jersey, cruising between 80 and 85, seeing a cop, and while attempting to downshift instead of putting on my break lights for him to see, I moved the console shifter (an automatic) the wrong direction an instead put it in reverse. By the time I made that stupid move, I was down to 65-70 maybe. In this case computers are good, it just shut the engine down, I lost all power and pulled over. After a couple minutes the car started and I was back on my way, but slowed down to 75.
So what if any damage did I do, is it related to this incident, which I stupidly repeated once afterwards, or what?
This is all why when we go somewhere, I drive there while I’m sober, and she drives home when I’m not.
Thanks.
Jim
I don’t think I’ll ever buy an '06 Impala in the future, it might be yours.
That happened to me, and it was a broken motor mount.